-
BarbM,
As you noted the Sygate Firewall product was bought out and is no longer supported, which means it isn't being maintained.
Since support ended there have been multiple vulnerabilities discovered, which make the use of this firewall unsafe.
Vulnerability Report: Sygate Personal Firewall 5.x
http://secunia.com/product/254/?task=advisories
I'd recommend that you look into more current firewall products that have support, there are a couple discussed earlier in this thread.
Bitman
-
To Mr Bitman, have now Online Armor, a little harder to configure but good all the same.
McAfee AV died in the butt, so now have Avira freebie, and works okay.
Went to my tuneup place to see how well both perform, and the firewall is okay but they said Avira was not detected. Wierd!
-
Are there any utilities that you can use to test the abilities of firewalls to make sure they are as secure as they should be?
-
Daz3210:
Here's a pair of tests:
"ShieldsUP!" primarily tests inbound vulnerability. "LeakTest" primarily tests outbound vulnerability.
My personal feeling is that if you have a clean system (i.e. no spyware, keyloggers, Trojans, etc.) the "LeakTest" is less critical than the "ShieldsUP!" test.
Other very important considerations in securing your system are:
- Making sure your browser settings are not to lax.
- Keeping your software up-to-date so that known vulnerabilities can not be exploited.
-
Firewall Challenge
-
After going through the trouble of cleaning up my PC again with the kind help of pskelley again I've been thoroughly reviewing the advice given on here as to how to avoid malware catastrophe. Amongst these things I spotted the fact that Norton Internet Security was in fact as useless as I suspected; via the Matousec test results thing. Norton frequently eats all my system resources and fails to spot anything vaguely damaging. (It was difficult to describe my feelings towards Norton without using expletives!)
So, in short: Should I remove Norton Internet Security 2008 completely, and pick up a nice little package like Kaspersky? Or perhaps a separate firewall and Virus Scanner etc? Your advice would be fantastically appreciated.
All the best,
Dunc
-
Hello Dunc,
Personally I don't care for suites.
I use Comodo firewall free, without the Comodo SafeSurf-ASK Toolbar option, and Eset Nod32 anti virus, paid.
If I didn't use Nod32 I would try a trial of Kaspersky's AV. I also have Avira's AntiVir free on another computer.
I'm happy with those programs at the moment. :)
-
Kool and the Gang. Once my current problem is officially diagnosed as sorted I will endeavour to follow your example and install Comodo and Eset Nod32, after getting rid of Norton's foul scourge. Thanks very much for the advice.
All the best,
Dunc
-
Just for future reference to future readers: I have uninstalled Norton and have replaced it with Comodo and Nod32 working in glorious fashion. These two fine pieces of software run smoothly without eating system resources like ol' Norton and instil far more confidence in me as to my system's security. Thanks for your valuable advice tashi.
-
Just wanted to say :) Comodo is a Turkish made firewall. Melih is the president of Comodo and Egemen has written the core of Comodo. Such a perfect firewall being achieved by turkish engineers makes us proud. :wav: